Sat
Dec 18 2010
10:24 pm
Local Community Radio Act passed
By: michael kaplan

WASHINGTON, DC – Today a bill to expand community radio nationwide – the Local Community Radio Act – passed the U.S. Senate, thanks to the bipartisan leadership of Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and John McCain (R-AZ). This follows Friday afternoon’s passage of the bill in the House of Representatives, led by Representatives Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Lee Terry (R-NE). The bill now awaits the President's signature.

These Congressional champions for community radio joined with the thousands of grassroots advocates and dozens of public interest groups who have fought for ten years to secure this victory for local media. In response to overwhelming grassroots pressure, Congress has given the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) a mandate to license thousands of new community stations nationwide. This bill marks the first major legislative success for the growing movement for a more democratic media system in the U.S.

“A town without a community radio station is like a town without a library,” said Pete Tridish of the Prometheus Radio Project, the group which has led the fight to expand community radio for ten years.
michael kaplan's picture

does this mean KFAR could be

Submitted by michael kaplan on Sat, 2010/12/18 - 10:25pm.

does this mean KFAR could be back on the air?

fischbobber's picture

KFAR

Submitted by fischbobber on Sun, 2010/12/19 - 1:24am.

I loved KFAR. Many times it was the only decent signal in this town.

reform4's picture

I seem to recall looking into this...

Submitted by reform4 on Sun, 2010/12/19 - 2:04am.

... and the trick was, at least with FM, was that you had to have significant signal separation from the next nearest station. I think, at the time, in Knoxville proper, there was either only one open slot, or zero. In the outlying counties, there were some possibilities, but at the time, it didn't mean much for Knoxville proper.

But again, that was something like 5 years ago. I know trying to find an open slot for my FM modulator for my mp3 player is very difficult.

fischbobber's picture

The trick

Submitted by fischbobber on Sun, 2010/12/19 - 2:42am.

Whatever the trick was, I sure wish 91.9 would use it because if one is not standing in exactly the right place WUOT is bleeding in and out with some other radio station.

Chris Irwin's picture

We hired to engineers to do

Submitted by Chris Irwin (not verified) on Sun, 2010/12/19 - 12:15pm.

We hired to engineers to do calculations under the old rules--you HAD to have at least the next 3 three places on the bandwidth to get a slot before--no way in Knoxville. If this reduces that to 2 two--maybe but probably not.

I have been saving my dimes to buy or rent and existing FM station--with the KFAR model we would DOMINATE market share in a year.

Another 50 years I should have the money.

michael kaplan's picture

Another community alternative

Submitted by michael kaplan on Sun, 2010/12/19 - 2:54pm.

Another community alternative would be to use WKCS between, say, 8 pm and 8 am. The station belongs to Knox County and is used mostly (in non-football season) for computer-generated rotation of oldies. I asked Indya Kincannon about this a few years ago but never received a definite answer.

County radio stations around the country are regularly used for community broadcasting - across the political spectrum. Driving through Gainseville FL, I noticed that the county station was even broadcasting Democracy Now. That's in Florida!

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